World’s fair left key infrastructure legacies and turned a large tract of industrial land into an urban streetscape praised worldwide. It wasn’t just that the fair introduced the city to the world and came with SkyTrain, BC Place Stadium, the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre, a new Cambie Street Bridge and other infrastructure legacies. In the wake of the fair, the site’s sale helped spark the urban revitalization that has established Vancouver atop the world’s most livable cities rankings. Read more: The Expo effect: How Expo 86 changed Vancouver | Economy | Business in Vancouver
The goal of the Commercial Drive Campaign is to build the necessary support so that Commercial Drive can become safe for, and inclusive of, people of all ages, abilities, and incomes by fall of 2015. The core changes we are aiming for include widened sidewalks, better transit and transit shelters, separated bike lanes, better pedestrian crossings and more marked or signalized crosswalks, more street furniture, and more landscaping. More at: Commercial Drive Campaign » Streets for Everyone
When Jean-Francois Mayet became mayor of Châteauroux in 2001, the town’s transit system was descending into irrelevance. Each of Châteauroux’s 49,000 inhabitants took the bus, on average, 21 times per year, well below the 38 per annum average for small French cities.
Mayet, a member of France’s socialist party, did what few mayors confronted with a struggling mass transit system would do: he made the whole thing free.
Ever since, the otherwise ordinary French town has become a canary in the coal mine of transportation policy, closely watched by the dozens of other municipalities in various stages of free transit experiments. Read more CityLab - To save a struggling mass transit system
Over the last decade – after 60-plus years of steady increases – the number of miles driven by the average American has been falling. Young Americans have experienced the greatest changes: driving less; taking transit, biking and walking more; and seeking out places to live in cities and walkable communities where driving is an option, not a necessity.
Academic research, survey results and government data point to a multitude of factors at play in the recent decline in driving among young people: socioeconomic shifts, changes in consumer preferences, technological changes, efforts by state governments and colleges to limit youth driving, and more.
NYC DOT and the MTA have developed three design concepts for Select Bus Service on Woodhaven Boulevard and Cross Bay Boulevard in southeast Queens, and two of them go further than previous SBS routes to keep cars from slowing down buses [PDF]. All of the options include some measures to shorten crossing distances for pedestrians on one of the city’s widest and most dangerous streets. Read more: First Look: Woodhaven BRT Could Set New Standard for NYC Busways
More roads or cheaper-to-use roads — ones without tolls, for example — lead to less productivity, not more, a recent study concludes. If you think this sounds paradoxical, so does the study’s author, Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Institute. But he also offers several reasons why it’s so.
For one thing, decisions to build roads or subsidize them by not charging users tends to come at the expense of other access options, things such as densification so people need not travel so far, or transit that provides more bang for the buck. These kinds of decisions are often based on politics, thus defying efficient market principles and undermining productivity. Read more: Don Cayo: Congestion may signify better productivity, not worse
How to critique a Transportation Master Plan that says all the right things? All the current urbanist jargon and concepts are here. The first part of the plan could have been written by algorithm mining from on-line content trendy notions of "complete streets", "walkability" and "a good transportation plan is a good land use plan." So, no fault can be found in the introduction and one is encouraged that based on these urbanist concepts, visionary and transformative actions are surely to follow.
But, I'm reminded of the band leader who, when asked to play a dreary old chestnut that both he and his band loathed, said no they didn't play that tune but you'll like our next selection instead — it contains many of the same notes.
Some background. Nanaimo is a small city on the west coast of Vancouver Island. It is often referred to as 5 minutes wide and 45 minutes long. By my estimation its land mass is five times greater than makes any sustainable sense. By comparison, Victoria, the Provincial Capital 100 km to the south with a comparable population of around 85,000 is 7.5 sq miles to Nanaimo's 35 sq miles. This is the elephant in the room in all important planning, economic development and mobility challenges our little city faces.
While brief, passing reference is made to this very low population density, its ramifications are not dealt with here in any realistic manner. The report has some blind spots and this is certainly one of them. To the report's credit the linkage between zoning and land use and mobility in the city is identified but in a way the weather or the city's geology might be discussed. At some point cities have to face the limitations of a real estate driven sprawling development model that was great fun through the boom years but has left us struggling with its consequences. It is possible, though not discussed in this document, that a one-size-fits-all multi modal mobility plan is simply not feasible in a city as sprawling as Nanaimo. Concerns I raised in an earlier post here.
@neil21@spirit_of_urban There is a salvageable, city in #Nanaimo’s core. 1st rate walk/ bike infra, modest transit are doable today...
— TheSidewalkBallet (@1sidewalkballet) November 6, 2013
A wise friend said early days in this planning process, "a transportation master plan is about everything", there's nothing in city life that transportation in the city doesn't touch for good or ill. To me the first and overarching question in thinking about transportation planning is "what kind of city do we want to have." Here's two examples of plans that show vastly different approaches. The first is the City of Red Deer, Alberta. They brought in two very high profile urbanists who are in demand around the world: Danish architect Jan Gehl and Gil Penalosa former Parks Commissioner, Bogata Columbia who now heads the Canadian based 8-80 Cities. Link here. The second is a report done for the City of White Rock by the consultant Nanaimo hired, Urban Systems. Link here.
